The Root of the Problem
by Ink Winged
Summary: Yusuke starts seeing a dentist for the first time in his life thanks to the urgings of Keiko, Kuwabara, and all who have been on the receiving end of Yusuke's not-so-pleasant breath. Sort of crack-ish. Contains OCs but no pairings/romance. Yay for my punny title.


_So this might or might not be a crackfic. I'm mostly writing it for laughs and because the thought of Yusuke suffering the effects of laughing gas cracks me up. Also tooth brushing isn't in his character and why has no one seemed to have thought of that before now?_

_A plot might develop at some point, IDK, but at the moment I have absolutely NO OC PAIRINGS in mind despite the fact that an OC will play a rather large role in this story. But this isn't a romance. I reserve the right to turn it into one, but I highly doubt it'll come to that._

_My story's title is punny but dumb. Suggestions?_

_Takes place post-series._

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Chapter 01

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Yusuke first suspected something was wrong when he leaned in to kiss Keiko after surviving three hours of Date Night without saying anything offensive and Keiko turned her head away. Usually for surviving three hours of Date Night without saying anything offensive he could get Keiko to do just about anything he asked in reward. That night, though, she turned her head and coughed a little, like she'd seen something embarrassing and wanted desperately for a distraction.

"You getting' sick?" Yusuke had asked.

"Um… yes, that must be it," Keiko told him. She smiled, although the corners of her mouth were tense. "I'm… queasy. Dinner must not be agreeing with me."

She got off Yusuke's couch and went home after that, abandoning their movie for what she said was a good night's sleep and some nausea meds. Yusuke let the subject drop. After all, Keiko had the immune system of a bull. She'd get over her tummy trouble in a day or two, and the chalupas they'd had for dinner had been sketchy as fuck.

On their next date, however, Keiko's behavior repeated even though they had opted out of chalupas and toward ramen Yusuke had cooked himself; he knew nothing bad had gone in her food because it wasn't like he put any boogers in it (when they were kids he probably couldn't have claimed as such but that was, like, forever ago and didn't count). That time Yusuke asked her a few different times if ramen was really the problem but Keiko had insisted it was so once again he let it drop without getting so much as a goodnight peck on the cheek.

The date after that saw another repeat of Keiko's Advanced Kiss Avoidance Technique, and Yusuke was getting seriously tired of being blue-balled over what Keiko claimed were bad dinners.

"Seriously, what's wrong—did you just suddenly develop allergies to everything? Did a demon cast a spell on you or something? Do I need to investigate, call in the guys, get out my Spirit Detective cap and spyglass and look for clues?" Yusuke griped as Keiko gathered her things to leave.

Keiko, by the door, looked embarrassed for a second. Then she just looked mad. "A clue might be nice, actually," she said in a frosty tone of voice, and she was out the door and gone a second later.

Yusuke spent the rest of the night drinking beer and wondering if maybe his movie choice was the turn-off. Transformers movies three dates in a row could have been overdoing it. Sure, he liked explosions and boobs and minimal plot as much as the next guy, but maybe Keiko wasn't as keen.

Luckily Kuwabara showed up at Yusuke's ramen shop the next day for lunch so Yusuke had someone to bitch to. He talked all while making Kuwabara's meal; Kuwabara nodded and listened without making fun of him too much, so Yusuke didn't slip anything weird into his food as payment. When he slid the bowl of ramen across the booth counter toward Kuwabara and lapsed into expectant silence, Kuwabara stared at Yusuke through narrowed eyes, clearly trying to think (Yusuke found the thought of Kuwabara thinking sort of funny, or would have, remembering that Kuwabara was actually attending college and Yusuke was a middleschool dropout—stupid bastard could actually be pretty smart when he wanted to, dammit).

Kuwabara eventually pushed his bowl of ramen aside without tasting it. He placed his hands on the counter and stood up, leaning forward over the counter so his weight went mostly on his arms. His black eyes were narrow, assessing, and suspicious.

"Yusuke," he said. "Uh… lean in, would ya?"

Yusuke said: "Gay."

Kuwabara stared at him, blinking, before getting it. Then he sputtered "Not like that you big freak!" and shuddered in what appeared to be the throes of abject disgust. When he recovered he growled "Just do it, okay?" and waited, lips pursed and eyes angry.

Yusuke looked around. No one was within sight. Warily he leaned forward, one centimeter at a time, until he was awkwardly close to Kuwabara's face. The end of Kuwabara's little orange pompadour brushed Yusuke's suddenly sweaty forehead.

The pair stood in silence for what felt like an eternity. Kuwabara stared at Yusuke with frightening intensity. Yusuke had no idea what they were doing. Yusuke was pretty sure he saw a tumbleweed roll past out of the corner of his eye. That was when he said: "Dude… what the fuck we doin'?"

His words had an unexpected effect on Kuwabara. The carrot top lurched back, hands flying to cover his mouth and nose as he staggered away from the ramen stand and began coughing up a lung. His eyes watered. His shoulders lurched. He gagged and coughed and spat like he was trying to barf up the lining of his own stomach.

That's when he said the words that made everything fall into place.

He said: "Oh god, Yusuke, _brush_ much?"

It took a minute for Yusuke to understand just what Kuwabara was getting at. Then realization dawned. When _had_ he last given his teeth a good brushing?

It wasn't as though oral hygiene had been high on his priority list as of late, or as of any time in his life, for that matter. His formative years hadn't been exactly typical. Atsuko wasn't the kind of parent who got all concerned with teaching their kid basic life skills such as this-is-when-we-bathe and this-is-how-we-hold-our-blueberry-forks, and she'd never been able to afford consistent healthcare. Yusuke only rarely got sick, anyway, so why waste money on insurance when there was booze to be bought? The most Atsuko had done was teach him to make coffee for her. He'd learned how to cook because she never did and if he didn't make food he didn't eat. He had only brushed his teeth when he was a kid because his teachers at school made sure all the kids knew their way around a mouthwash bottle (the correct way, not his way, which was swallowing the mouthwash to get a buzz), but three years of living in the land of 'No Toilets So Please Poop in this Handy Hole' had sort of ruined Yusuke for things like running water and baths, let alone regular flossing. Well, he bathed, of course he _bathed_… but when was the last time he'd brushed his teeth?

Was _that_ the problem?

Yusuke didn't remember smelling anything weird lately, and certainly not anything coming out of his own mouth.

But if not his breath, then what?

Slowly, watching as Kuwabara began to pick his disgusted self up off the sidewalk, Yusuke lifted a hand to his mouth and breathed into his fingers. The exhalation bounced up into his nose.

The breath smelled… not bad. But not very good, either. Just sort of normal, but in the I Just Ate kind of way.

Kuwabara regarded Yusuke in horrified awe. "Dude, how are you doing that?" he asked.

"Is it really that bad?" Yusuke asked.

"It smells like a demon ate a dumpster of diapers and then had bad burritos for lunch. Sulfuric burritos. With onions and old cheese on top."

"It can't be _that_ bad."

Kuwabara yanked over his bowl of ramen and began to drink the broth in huge gasping gulps. "Gotta clear my palate," he managed between swallows. "And you gotta see a dentist, fast."

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_Next time: In Which Kuwabara Takes Yusuke to See a Dentist and People Get Hurt. Mostly Dentists._


End file.
